A team of European scientists reports that climate change estimates for the next century may have substantially underestimated the potential magnitude of global warming. They conclude that actual warming due to human fossil fuel emissions may be 15% to 78% higher than warming estimates that do not take into account the feedback mechanism involving carbon dioxide and Earth’s temperature.

In a paper to be published on 26 May in Geophysical Research Letters, Marten Scheffer of Wageningen University in the Netherlands and colleagues at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany and the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology in the United Kingdom use newly acquired ancient climate data to quantify the two-way phenomenon by which greenhouse gases not only contribute to higher temperatures, but are themselves increased by the higher temperatures—a positive feedback loop.

The essence of the problem stripped to the bare bones is that CO2 affects global temperature, while at the same time temperature affects the CO2 concentration. To analyze the feedback our model should include both effects.

The effect of CO2 and other greenhouse gases on global temperature is relatively straightforward...The effect of temperature on greenhouse gases is the
more difficult aspect to model.

—from the paper

Examples of positive feedback loops in warming include increased release of CO2, methane and N2O from terrestrial ecosystems; increased oceanic denitrification and stratification, resulting in nutrient limitation of algal growth reducing the CO2 sink to the ocean; and the reduction of CaCO3 neutralization at higher temperatures.

The researchers interpreted high-resolution data from polar ice cores and temperature reconstructions based on geological proxy data in a new way.

One complicating factor was that some of the processes that play a role in the feedback loop are quite fast, taking place over a period of years, while others take centuries or even millennia. This implies that the strength of the feedback effect depends on the time scale being analyzed. Another factor was that the modern world looks quite different than it did tens of thousands of year ago, when the ice in the cores was formed.

Therefore, the authors focused especially on relatively recent climatic anomaly known as the “Little Ice Age.” During this period (about 1550-1850), immortalized in many paintings of frozen landscapes in Northern Europe, Earth was substantially colder than it is now.

This, scientists have concluded, was due largely to reduced solar activity, and just as during true ice ages, the atmospheric carbon level dropped during the Little Ice Age. The authors used this information to estimate how sensitive the carbon dioxide concentration is to temperature, which allowed them to calculate how much the climate-carbon dioxide feedbacks will affect future global warming.

Although there are still significant uncertainties, our simple data-based approach is consistent with the latest climate-carbon cycle models, which suggest that global warming will be accelerated by the effects of climate change on the rate of carbon dioxide increase.

In view of our findings, estimates of future warming that ignore these effects may have to be raised by about 50%. We have, in fact, been conservative on several points. For instance, we do not account for the greenhouse effect of methane, which is also known to increase in warm periods.

—Marten Scheffer

The research was funded by Wageningen University and the United Kingdom Natural Environment Research Council.

You know, somene does a scientific study of the past, and someone says "the sky is falling."

There is the tragedy of our species in a nutshell.

I think there is some question about how to (a) understand this past cycle and (b) apply it to future conditions, but it's sad when the emotional response is to not even try.

We know co2 capture heat. We know, having captured some heat, the concentrations of a number of gasses in our atmosphere will change. I think we know that anything we can do to understand such changes will help.

... if we are going to live up to "homo sapiesn" and not cop out as "homo hystericaus"

Personally I'm encouraged by studies such as this because it shows we are continuing to increase our knowledge of how climate trends function. The first step to fixing a problem is to identify the problem. As we get better and better at identifying the scope and causes of the problem (and ranges like 19 to 79% are not very accurate so far) then the better equipped we'll be to respond appropriately.

Of course, the easy answer is just to have a mandatory roll-out of biofuels and mandated CO2 limits, since we know at the very least if we stop producing CO2, we'll stop whatever our own influence is on warming. Unfortunately, many will continue to deny there is a man-influenced effect until studies like this can document it with greater accuracy.

Look what happened with smokers. About 50% of them still believe that heavy smoking has nothing to do with lung cancer (the other 50% is no longer around). Some global warming may not be all that bad for very cold places, specially if it comes gradually over a century or more.

The story directly above this one on "greencarcongress" is that GM is subsidizing gas purchases for buyers of new full size SUVs'. Does anyone else see an irony?

If the world is going to meaningfully address global warming, the US will, as the biggest source, need to lead the way rather than drag its feet.

A Pareto analysis of emmissions would suggest:
No new coal burning power plants. New baseload plants should be nuclear (wind/solar are too expensive). After nuclear plant production is ramped up, start replacing existing coal plants with nuclear.
New personal transportation (i.e. commuter cars) should become hybrid or, if the technology supports it, plug-in hybrid or all electric.
Truck transportation should move on electric rail where ever feasible.
Residential/commercial heating should be converted to ground coupled heat pumps to replace oil/gas.

Much of the above would be encouraged by a carbon tax phased in over a ten or fifteen year period starting modestly to give people fair warning and an opportunity to change their habits. Government subsidies to assist in major conversion costs would also accelerate the changes.